The fundamentals and best practices of multiple particle tracking microrheology are discussed, including methods for producing video microscopy data, analyzing data to obtain mean-squared displacements and displacement correlations, and, critically, the accuracy and errors (static and dynamic) associated with particle tracking. Applications presented include two-point microrheology, methods for characterizing heterogeneous material rheology, and shell models of local (non-continuum) heterogeneity. Particle tracking has a long history. The earliest descriptions of Brownian motion relied on precise observations, and later quantitative measurements, using light microscopy.
In situ measurement of localization error in particle tracking microrheology